The Truth of What Ifs
by shira syndrome
Summary: If he had done this, would I have done that? If I had chosen this, would he have chosen that? Albedo dreams a dream, of one outcome out of thousands more.


Disclaimer: Warning, disclaimer hate! Warning, disclaimer hate!

30 kisses theme 29 - _the sound of waves_

a/n: The fic itself is 1000 words. I should know, I thought it out so I wouldn't have to embellish the plot. SURREALISM AHOY. Also, my next fic is going to be by 20th posted here. And guess what? It'll be chalk full of abstract boy love too! Obviously I only have two settings: happy!crack and angsty!crack. XD;;

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**The Truth of What Ifs**

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Please take yours seats, turn your attention to the stage. Today's performance is very special to my heart. I hope you'll enjoy it too. Because today I'm going to show you a different kind of truth, the sort that no one takes the time to remember anymore. It's the type of truth that lays forgotten in the back of your mind. Fragile. Transparent. It carries the dead stench of possibility, feasting on your capacities for guilt. 

You all know it. You all have it. You all regret it. For the truth I speak of is the truth of _what ifs._

Don't be hesitant to leaf through the brochure, but please be sure to turn the flash off your cameras. Now please, enjoy the show. 

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The scene opens on the banks of a beach. It's winter, the water cold and flecked with icy froth, but three young men are walking the shoreline. As the deeply intimate do, they occasionally bump shoulders.

The red one is furthest from the ocean's fingers, but he reaches around the dark smudge of hair in the middle and shoves at the last in line, sending the white one stumbling into the tide. He gasps at the touch of water, a cold manacle about his ankles. The culprit prances away, laughing.

There is no "Why did you do that?" because there is no reason to ask. The most irrelevant mediums in their lives are questions. It is an overcast winter day and they are on their way to mourn ghosts.

"Hey," the red one starts after they had been travelling through fog and silence for a while, "did you notice they hired a new girl at Moby Dick's?"

"Did they?" The black one, placatingly.

"Yeah."

"Why?" The white one, mulishly.

"Heard they found her in of those pharmaceutical dump sites. There were two of them, sisters. Only one of them was still alive, but her central nervous system's pretty much fried. She can still perform basic tasks, though." A pause. "She's got pretty hair - blonde."

"Why don't we stop by sometime?" Either one or the other, but both understanding as only brothers can be.

"Sure."

Only now do we see the flowers each is carrying. As they climb the rocky slope at the end of the beach, coming out on the cusp of the ocean itself, the black one nods, smiling gently. His arm is crooked around a bouquet of mixed zinnia, a spot of startling color against the stony grey backdrop. He steps off stage, onto the shore's edge, where he will say a few private words before casting his offering into the ocean.

Now the red and white one stand alone. This is _his_ pain, his own intimate wound, but unlike the other, the white one is not willing to stray far from his side despite it, even if his presence ruins the soft glow of remembrance. He reaches out and clasps the red one's hand, cold as ice. There has never been space between them.

The red one doesn't move; staring out over the mantle of rock and water, he squeezes the hand held in his. "You remember the other waitress at Moby Dick's? The one that's just helping out for a little while?"

He doesn't like going to that place without the others, or any place, really. Still, he says, "The one with... brown hair. Right?"

"Right. I think her name is Shion or something, one of the boss's old friends."

The sweet peas cradled against the red one's chest shiver in a gust of wind. He is not one to do things by halves. This a goodbye, a farewell between the living and the dead. They will not come here again.

The white one swallows. "What about her?" His voice falls as broken notes in a melody, sounding discordant in the wind-whipped silence. 

"What?"

He turns his head and brings it to rest against the other's shoulder, sheltering his pinking nose in the warm curves of jacket. "The girl, at Moby Dick's. I remember her."

An absent pause. "... Oh yeah, the girl." A quicksilver grin, spreading across the handsome face as a swift sunrise. "I was thinking - you should ask her out!"

The white one gapes, struck dumb. He can taste the joke - his playful half-heart so eager to make light out of darkness - so in the end, out of all possible responses, he asks, "Why?"

"Oh come _on_, you're about to turn twenty and you've never had a girlfriend!" A laugh. "Something's wrong there." 

There is no need to point out such an observation applies to three cases, not just one. The white one clutches harder to the hand in his when the red one releases the flowers without warning, scattering them in all four directions. Some tumble downward, landing as distant pinpricks on the undulating waves. 

This is a very careful send-off. There are no sakura blossoms here. The white one nestles his head into the hollow of his brother's collarbone.

Sakura.

Cold winter water laps at the round cliff they stand on. Soon they will walk back along the grey beach, back along the grey field with its unmoving grey windmills, back along the grey forest path to the grey gas station.

So quiet, it's sucked up by the hiss and roar of the ocean, reaching his ears like the wet voice of a mythical sea creature riding the winds: "I'm glad you're here, Albedo." 

"I know. I know you are. I... am too." 

Neither has said a word since the black one left them.

Detaching himself, the white one - Albedo - approaches the cliff-side, a nineteen-year-old man who lives with his brothers in a small apartment on Second Miltia, who spends his time helping his half-heart find places in the world for the standards he once despised, who pulls out a single white chrysanthemum from his jacket.

He drops it into the sea.

Truth. 

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Zinna (mixed) - _In memory of an absent friend_

Sweet pea - _Goodbye; Departure; Thank you for a lovely time_

Chrysanthemum (white) - _Truth_


End file.
